10. Nora
NORA
"I'm so sorry, Dad."
The words tear out of me. My throat closes. My eyes burn. I can't hold it. Can't put the armor back on. It's gone, stripped away the second his hand touched my arm and he said "kiddo" in that soft, careful voice.
His face shifts. The lines around his mouth deepen. He's looking at me like he doesn't know where to start, and I realize I've never seen that expression on him before. Not once. Twenty-one years and I've never given him a reason to wear it.
“Kiddo—”
"I'm sorry." My voice cracks. The tears come. Hot and fast and I can't stop them. "I'm so sorry."
"Nora." He steps closer. His hand lifts, hovers near my shoulder, then drops. "Are you okay?"
The question breaks something in my chest. Not what were you thinking or how could you or what's wrong with you—just are you okay. Like I'm the one who matters. Like my answer is the only thing he cares about.
I shake my head. Can't speak. My hands twist together in front of my stomach, fingers knotting, unknotting, useless.
"Kiddo." His voice stays steady. Gentle. He's trying so hard not to make this worse and the effort—the visible, obvious effort—cuts deeper than anger ever could. "Talk to me."
I force air into my lungs. "I don't know."
"You don't know if you're okay?"
"I don't know anything." The words spill out, jagged and raw. "Maybe I'm broken. I've never felt any ounce of attraction to anyone for the past twenty-one years, and now I'm attracted to all three of them. My stepbrothers. I don't—I don't know what's wrong with me."
Silence.
His face changes. I watch it happen. The crease between his brows digs in deeper.
The corners of his mouth pull down. The gray at his temples looks brighter against the sudden pallor of his skin.
He ages. Right in front of me. Five years in five seconds, and I did that. I put those lines on his face.
"Dad—"
"Nothing is wrong with you." His voice stays even. Careful. Each word measured, deliberate, like he's afraid one wrong syllable will shatter me. "Nora, nothing is wrong with you."
"Then why—" I swallow hard, wipe my eyes with the heel of my hand.
"Why didn't I feel anything before? Everyone else—Dina, the girls at school, everyone—they all felt it.
They all knew. And I just—didn't. For twenty-one years I thought something was missing in me, and then I meet them and suddenly I?—"
I stop. Can't finish. Can't say it out loud again.
He's quiet. His hands go into his pockets. His shoulders stay tense, held too tight, like he's bracing for impact.
"I love you so much." The words come slowly. Steady. Absolutely certain. "And I will do anything in my power to always keep you happy. But I need time for this. I'm not angry with you. I'm not angry at you. I just need to wrap my head around this."
The tears come harder. I bite down on my lip, taste salt, and nod even though nodding feels like lying. Like agreeing to something I can't survive.
"Dad, this is not your failure at being a parent." My voice shakes. "You're the best dad anyone could ever hope for. You—you did everything right. This isn't—it's not something you did wrong."
A smile flickers across his face. Small. Sad. The kind that doesn't reach his eyes.
"And you're the best daughter anyone could ever wish for." He says it like a fact. Simple. True. No hesitation. "Don't ever question that."
"Please don't hate me."
The words come out broken. A whisper. A plea. I'm twenty-one years old and I'm begging my father not to leave me, not to pull away, not to decide that I'm too much or too complicated or too wrong.
"I could never hate you." His voice cracks. Just barely. Just enough that I hear it. "I love you. I would never turn my back on you. Just give me time."
I nod. Can't speak. My throat's too tight, my chest too full of something that feels like drowning.
He steps forward. His arms come around me, pulling me in, and I press my face into his shoulder and hold on.
His jacket smells like the laundry detergent he's used my entire life—the same brand, the same scent, twenty-one years of constancy wrapped around me.
His hand comes up, cups the back of my head, and I feel his fingers shake.
Just slightly.
Just enough.
I hold tighter.
The hug lasts ten seconds. Maybe fifteen. Long enough that I memorize it—the weight of his arms, the steady rise and fall of his breathing, the way his chin rests on the top of my head. Long enough that when he pulls back, the absence feels like cold air rushing in.
"Okay," I whisper.
He nods. His hand lingers on my shoulder for one more second, then drops.
I watch him walk back toward Vivienne. She's walking to the car, arms crossed, mouth pressed into a thin line. She doesn't look at me. Just opens the passenger door and slides in. My dad follows. He doesn't look back.
The engine starts. The car pulls away. Gravel crunches under the tires, and then they're gone.
I stand there. Arms wrapped around myself. The sun's still shining. The grass is still green. The sky hasn't fallen. It just feels like it has.
Footsteps behind me.
I don't turn.
"Nora."
Cade's voice. Low. Close.
I close my eyes. Breathe. Try to pull myself together and fail completely.
A hand touches my shoulder. Warm. Steady. I turn, and all three of them are there. Cade in front, Rhett and Jude flanking him, close enough that I could reach out and touch any of them.
Cade's hand slides from my shoulder to my jaw. He tilts my face up, and I meet his eyes—brown, steady, unflinching.
"I love you," he says.
My breath catches. Stops completely. The world narrows to those three words, to the weight of them, to the way they settle in my chest like something solid and unbreakable.
He kisses me. Soft. Slow. Not demanding—not the way he usually is, all confidence and command. His lips brush mine with a gentleness that makes my throat tighten all over again, and when he pulls back, his thumb strokes along my jaw once, twice, like he's anchoring me to this moment.
I can't speak. Can't breathe. Can barely stand.
Rhett steps in before I find my voice.
His hand comes up, fingers brushing my temple with the kind of care that makes my eyes sting. He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his touch lingering, warm and steady against my skin.
"Nora." My name first. Always my name. His voice is low, aching, stripped of everything except the truth. "I love you."
He kisses me like he's memorizing the shape of my mouth.
Like he's been holding those words back and now that they're out, he doesn't want to stop.
His lips move against mine with a tenderness that makes my knees weak, and when he breaks the kiss, his forehead rests against mine.
I feel his breath against my lips, warm and unsteady, and I realize his hands are trembling where they cup my face.
Then Jude.
He moves in next, and his hand finds my waist. No grin. No teasing. No stupid joke to break the tension. Just him—just Jude, quieter than I've ever seen him, looking at me like I'm the only thing in the world that matters.
"I love you."
The words are stripped bare. Raw. Real. They land like a brick because they're coming from the brother who never stops talking, who fills every silence with noise and laughter, and right now, those three words are all he has. All he needs.
He kisses me. Gentle. His thumb strokes along my hip, a small, grounding touch that makes me feel tethered even as everything else spins out of control. I'm crying again—harder this time, messier, the kind of crying that comes from too much feeling and nowhere to put it.
"I love you too." The words burst out of me, shaky and wet and desperate.
I say it to Cade first, looking into those steady brown eyes.
Then Rhett, whose gray gaze holds mine like he'll never let go.
Then Jude, whose usual brightness has softened into something fierce and unguarded. "I love you. All of you."
My voice shakes. The tears won't stop. They're streaming down my face, hot and relentless, but I don't care. The words are true. Truer than anything I've said all day. Truer than anything I've ever said in my life.
They don't tell me it's going to be okay.
Don't promise that my dad will come around or that Vivienne will accept this or that everything will magically work out.
They don't offer platitudes or empty reassurances.
They just stand there. Three walls around me, blocking out the wind and the world and everything that hurts.
Cade's hand stays on my jaw, his thumb brushing away tears that just keep coming.
Rhett's fingers lace through mine, squeezing gently, rhythmically, like a heartbeat.
Jude's arm wraps around my waist, pulling me against his side, and I let myself lean into him because standing on my own feels impossible right now.
I breathe. In. Out. Shaky and uneven, but it's something.
The sun's still shining. The grass is still green. My dad is gone, and I don't know when he's coming back. I don't know if Vivienne will ever look at me the same way. I don't know what happens next—don't know how we navigate this or if we even can.
But I'm not alone.
And right now, in this moment, with their hands on me and their words still echoing in my chest, that's enough.